1.9 SAT Writing - Improving Sentence Errors

Improving Sentence Errors: As I suggest in my facts section, there will be 25 of these questions.  Essentially, the SAT test maker takes a quite lengthy sentence and underlines either a portion of the sentence or the entire sentence and asks you to rearrange the portion into a version that conforms to traditional conventions of grammar.  No big deal right?  It can be since the test maker not only scrabbles the underlined portion to contain a variety of errors, but the answer choices contain areas of grammar that you need to know in order to omit them as possibilities- and you need to omit them quickly!  Catching on to patterns helps you to achieve this.  For instance, if you can quickly spot choices in the passive or recognize wordiness, then you may omit these quickly.  After you cancel out these traps, question-by-question you begin to reveal the correct answer choice, an make no mistake about it- the correct answer choice is always the cleanest, straightforward version. 

Tips for Improving Sentence Errors

Here are some general techniques for approaching these questions:

• If you recognize that something is fishy with the statement, even if you cannot identify exactly what is wrong with it, make a quick slash on answer choice A, and move directly into choices B through E. 
• Use the choices to help you determine what the exact error is; this way you may narrow your choices.  For instance, if you find that the first two choices begin with a singular verb and the next three choices begin with a plural verb, you know that they are assessing your subject-verb agreement ability.  Quickly find the subject and either you are cancelling out two or three, but you are narrowing your scope, revealing the correct answer. 
• When you have narrowed your choices, always look for wordiness.  The test makers are not original.  They will use the same tricks time and time again, meaning they will add unnecessary words here and there because they have run out of ideas to trick you.  Sometimes it may be just one extra word.  You need to be aware of this pattern since it is so common.  Adding a preposition here or an extra noun there could be the difference between big points for you.  Any time you narrow the choice to two or three examples, look for added, unnecessary words. 
• Sometimes it takes a little work to get to the write answer.  Many grammatical ideas may be floating through your head.  You may not SEE the error immediately.  It may take a little work in logic and process of elimination to expose the correct answer.  Do not get frustrated- putting in the work is part of the process.  However, by shedding a choice here and there by use of patterns, you will hopefully get yourself into a two choice split.  Look at the choices, concentrate, and find why one is better than the other.  This choice often comes down to one element.  Knowing the Big Six will help you make accurate choices, but above all- if you get into a pickle between two, choose the more straightforward answer choice.
• Practice moving through SAT questions with the same method so test day feels like just another game.  There are psychological aspects to the test.  If you are moving through with a consistent strategy, namely, reading the stem question, recognizing if something is fishy, moving directly to B-E, using choices to help determine the error, narrowing the scope, and choosing statements with the cleanest approach, then you will strengthen your ability to see the patterns. 
• More than any other question, wordiness and common use of language play the biggest role on eliminating answer choices.  Though ultimately the correct answer may depend on another area of grammar, e.g., pronouns, eliminating strange and inflated language will help you get closer to the answer. 
• In any given set of improving sentence errors, expect 2-3 questions to be answer choice A, meaning there is no problem with the statement. 

Look out for tricky questions that contain sentence structure errors.  Sometimes the error may be fixed in a choice that contains the simple correction of a period or the addition of a verb to fix the fragment.